Is a Circular Future of Food Waste a Pipe Dream?
The aspiration of a ‘circular economy’ is to create a world where nothing goes to waste.
When we consider items like glass bottles, old newspapers, or car tires, the idea seems feasible. However, when it comes to waste in the food system finding its way back into the food system, it becomes a bit more challenging to digest.
Currently, most of what we do follows a linear model. We start with raw materials, go through a series of processes, and end up with a product of higher value. Along the way, we often discard materials like packaging. Eventually, the product is used, and whatever remains is disposed of.
In essence, everything we produce in our current system is either waste or destined to become waste. And waste always needs a place to go.
Circular is far more than upcycling
Achieving a truly circular solution to this problem involves more than just taking the final bit of waste and turning it into something valuable. The classic “wallet made from an old inner tube” isn’t circular because, well, the wallet also eventually becomes waste.
Circularity is about finding ways to close the loop wherever material is discarded, and plug it back into the system, if not into the same company that created it. If turning old inner tubes into wallets only adds one more step to the linear chain, a circular solution would involve finding a way to continually transform old inner tubes into new ones.
The paradox of circular systems
In episode 3 of our food waste series, Olympia Yarger, the CEO of Goterra, highlighted why it’s so challenging to think about true circularity, particularly in the food system:
“This kind of change requires everyone to imagine what doesn’t exist, and that's just not a place we feel comfortable in. So we find that our iterations are only in the margins of what we already know. The electric car looks exactly like a car, it's just electric.
We haven't really reimagined our lives, we've just sort of created this vignette that is better. When we hit a roadblock, it becomes this self-fulfilling prophecy that, because we can't imagine this new world, we can't imagine how we’ll get there. All of these parts have to come together: government has to imagine, investors have to imagine, we all have to suspend belief long enough to get there.”
This quote emphasizes a paradox inherent in working on food waste issues (and perhaps developing first-to-world innovations more broadly).
On one hand, companies need to sell their products to survive and thrive. Innovations that deviate too far from the expected norms are often met with skepticism and ridicule, regardless of their effectiveness. Early automobile manufacturers attached horse heads to cars to make them more familiar to both horses and carriage owners. With hindsight it seems absurd, but is it so different from how today's electric cars still resemble their fossil fuel-powered predecessors?
On the other hand, we must fundamentally reimagine waste, not iterate along the margin. So, the question arises: is it possible to create products and systems that feel familiar enough to be accepted while also being truly transformative?
There’s no such thing as waste
We believe it is. But it will require a new understanding of what waste means. Entrepreneurs, investors, policymakers, and eventually consumers need to adopt a mindset where waste becomes virtually non-existent. Products need to be designed from day 0 to be reintegrated- an ‘extended product stewardship mindset’ as Gayle Sloan, CEO at WMRR, calls it in episode 2. Previously discarded materials must become valuable raw inputs for new processes.
Maybe selling the idea that there’s no such thing as waste is a real pipe dream. However far-fetched it may seem today, between dwindling resources, the growing pressure of climate change on supply chains, and the increasing global interest in taking action, it seems likely that in the not-too-distant future companies will be held accountable for the waste they generate.
While much of what's getting funded today is incremental, we believe the innovators developing commercially viable and transformative solutions - and the investors who back them - will be the big winners. And we know doing that work requires imagination, creativity, and willingness to dream big when it matters.
Catch up on our food waste podcast series here:
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